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COVER All’s Well That Ends Well 2010 | 2011 season SHAKESPEARE THEATRE COMPANY COMinG SOOn TO Sidney HarMan Hall november 26, 2010–January 9, 2011 This rousing musical springs to life on stage during the holiday season, poking fun at optimism and following Candide on his quest for true love with songs like “Make Our Garden Grow” and “Glitter and Be Gay.” Candide The 20th-century classic, based on Voltaire’s music by Leonard Bernstein satire, will be reinvigorated in a new book adapted from Voltaire by Hugh Wheeler adaptation by director Mary Zimmerman, lyrics by Richard Wilbur matching her inventive, visually stunning additional lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, John Latouche, style with Bernstein’s ravishing score. Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker and Leonard Bernstein directed and newly adapted from Voltaire Zimmerman’s previous STC production by Mary Zimmerman of Pericles brought forth “an evening of bewitching ingenuity and bountiful surprise” (The Washington Post). Following the successful collaboration of King Lear in 2009, this farcical tale is a co-production with Chicago’s Goodman Theatre. “The best of all possible worlds...” Get your tickets today! Call 202.547.1122 or visit ShakespeareTheatre.org Groups of 10+, 202.547.1122, option 6 Photo of Geoff Packard by Brian Warling. design/direction: Kelly rickert. Table of Contents Feature Pilgrim's Progress by Akiva Fox 4 Program Synopsis 7 About the Playwright 9 Title Page 11 Cast 13 Cast Biographies 14 Direction and Design 18 Shakespeare Theatre Company Upcoming Events 21 Shakespeare Theatre Company 22 For the Shakespeare 24 Theatre Company Board of Trustees 26 Affiliated Artists 26 Staff 28 Special Thanks/Volunteers 30 Individual Donors 32 Three Ways to Give 40 Happenings at the Harman 41 Corporate Donors 43 Foundation/Government Support 44 Season Guide/Acting for Business 45 Professionals In Rehearsal 47 Audience Services 48 Cover photo of Miriam Silverman and Tony roach by Scott Suchman. right: Photo of Miriam Silverman by Scott Suchman. Pilgrim’s Progress Pilgrims Leaving Canterbury, by lucas Horenbout, c. 1520 Whate’er the course, the know today. Shakespeare’s career end is the renown,” says began with a journey of several days Helena, the heroine of from his birthplace in the English William Shakespeare’s countryside to the flourishing city All’s Well That Ends Well, of London. But he rarely travelled in one of the play’s many variations farther in his lifetime, and never left on its title expression. This variation, the confines of the British Isles. The however, uses the language of early explorers captured the English journeying; no matter how far the imagination at this time with their path might stray, she says, no matter long sea voyages and stories of travel what obstacles block the way, the were among the best sellers in these destination justifies the difficulties of early days of popular publishing. the journey. Both Helena and Bertram, the object of her affection, embark on Two medieval forms of journeying still journeys: from the country to the city, figured in the literary and historical from one nation to another, but also memory of this time: the chivalric from innocence to experience, from quest and the holy pilgrimage. The youth to maturity and ultimately from quest was a journey carried out by conflict to love. a knight, either to rescue a lady or to prove himself worthy of her In the early 1600s, when Shakespeare by completing a difficult task. In wrote All’s Well That Ends Well, journeys Shakespeare’s time, the noblemen carried real weight; travels took weeks who travelled to the Netherlands to or months instead of the hours we fight a Spanish occupation viewed 4 themselves as questing knights in the him.” In Catholic theology, pilgrimage medieval tradition. The pilgrimage derived from grace, the belief that was a journey available to people of all a person’s actions could contribute ranks, on which the pilgrim traveled to their own salvation. By walking many miles to a shrine to ask for a hundreds of miles through every saint’s intercession with God in curing imaginable hardship, pilgrims earned an illness or in forgiving a sin. The the salvation they requested at the end greatest work of English medieval of their journey. The English Catholic literature, Chaucer’s Canterbury writer John Heywood (coincidentally Tales, takes place among a group of the first to put down the expression pilgrims on the road to the shrine at “all’s well that ends well” in print) Canterbury. wrote that “such as pains do take on foot…shall thereby merit more highly The journeys of Helena and Bertram in than by anything done by man.” Some All’s Well That Ends Well repeatedly make Protestants even banned pilgrimage reference to quests and pilgrimages. because it ran contrary to their belief The King sends the young men of that salvation was predestined by France to fight in the Italian wars to heaven, and unalterable by human “find what you seek, that fame may actions. “Our remedies oft in ourselves cry you loud.” Indeed, Bertram longs do lie, which we ascribe to heaven,” to prove himself in battle, so much so Helena argues. “The fated sky gives us that he defies the notion that he is “too free scope.” In the spirit of pilgrimage, young” and becomes a captain to the she takes an active role in the Duke of Florence. He runs away a boy, redemption of her love, rather than but returns a man, having led men into leaving it up to fate. combat. Helena’s journey also takes the form of a quest, and hers overturns The quest and the pilgrimage were the quest’s traditional gender roles. both formal journeys toward definite When Bertram escapes after his forced destinations, but embedded in both marriage to Helena, she sets off on an was the notion that the journey arduous journey to find him and to mattered as much as the destination. prove herself worthy of him. The traveler was meant to undergo self-evaluation along the way, and to Helena’s journey soon assumes the return home transformed. For although guise of a pilgrimage. She initially Helena declares that “whate’er the worships Bertram as a pilgrim might course, the end is the renown,” it is a saint (using religious language, she precisely the challenges the course says that her “idolatrous fancy must offers both to her and to Bertram that sanctify his relics”), but when he flees makes their end together possible. Both her after their marriage, she must concentrate so fully on their goals that undertake a true pilgrimage. She they hardly notice as their journeys claims to be a pilgrim to Compostela in educate, mature and transform them. Spain, one of the most popular shrines Ultimately, they travel different paths in Europe, seeking absolution from her to the same destination. sin of “ambitious love” for Bertram. Akiva Fox, In reality, however, Helena does not Literary Associate make a pilgrimage to repent her love for Bertram, but rather to earn it; she would not “have him till I do deserve 5 presents From the stage to the big screen. Presented at Sidney Harman Hall Broadcast in HD nT live enters its second season as an initiative to broadcast live performances of national Theatre plays onto cinema screens around the world. each listed presentation will be performed live in london, filmed in high definition and presented exclusively by the Shakespeare Theatre Company in the greater Washington region. Coming this season Phédre Saturday, October 16, 2010 at 2 p.m. BUY ALL 7 an encore screening of Phédre starring Helen Mirren. for only $110! A Disappearing Number Sunday, november 7, 2010 at 2 p.m. Complicite’s A Disappearing Number, directed by Simon McBurney. awards include the Olivier award for Best new Play (2008), the evening Standard Theatre award for Best Play (2007) and The Critics’ Circle Theatre award for Best new Play (2007). Hamlet Monday, december 27, 2010 at 7:30 p.m. Shakespeare’s Hamlet, directed by nicholas Hytner, featuring rory Kinnear in the title role, david Calder as Polonius, Clare Higgins as Gertrude, Patrick Malahide as Claudius and ruth negga as Ophelia. Fela! Monday, January 17, 2011 at 7:30 p.m. Currently playing on Broadway, the Tony award winning musical Fela! comes to the national with Sahr ngaujah as Fela anikulapo-Kuti. King Lear Monday, February 7, 2011 at 7:30 p.m. The donmar Warehouse in collaboration with the national Theatre presents artistic director Michael Grandage’s production of Shakespeare’s King Lear. Frankenstein Monday, March 21, 2011 at 7:30 p.m. danny Boyle’s production of Frankenstein, a play by nick dear, based on the novel by Mary Shelley. The Cherry Orchard Monday, July 11, 2011 at 7:30 p.m. Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, directed by nT associate director Howard davies, whose recent productions of russian plays (including Philistines, Burnt by the Sun and The White Guard) have earned huge critical acclaim. Zoë Wanamaker will play Madame ranevskaya. *dates subject to change Tickets are $20. Save 20% when you purchase the seven-screening series. ViP seating will be given to series holders and STC subscribers and donors. For more information and to reserve tickets, contact the Box Office at 202.547.1122 or visit ShakespeareTheatre.org/NTLive Photo of Helen Mirren by Catherine ashmore. Synopsis After the death of his father, Count Bertram of Rossillion is called to Paris to serve the King of France. The King is deathly ill, and the physician who might have cured him has died, though not before leaving his medical secrets to his daughter, Helena.